Cause of Death and the Quest for Meaning After the Loss of a Child

Abstract

This study examined patterns of making meaning among 155 parents whose children died from a variety of violent and non-violent causes. Findings indicated 53% of violent loss survivors could not make sense of their loss, as compared to 32% of non-violent loss survivors. Overall, there was overlap in sense-making strategies across different causes of death, with many parents invoking spiritual and religious meanings and the cultivation of empathy for the suffering of others. Nonetheless, violent loss survivors described the imperfection of the world and brevity of life more frequently in their narrative responses than parents who lost a child to natural causes, who in turn were more likely to find benefit in the loss in terms of personal growth. Violent loss survivors—and especially those losing a child to homicide—also reported enhanced appreciation of life more frequently than survivors of non-violent losses, and surviving a child's suicide was specifically associated with a change in priorities in the sample. Findings are discussed in terms of common and distinctive themes in meaning making that clinicians may encounter when working with parental bereavement, and the implications these carry for finding spiritual and secular significance in a traumatic loss.

Notes

Note. Sample size varied due to missing data.

^a n = 154. ^b n = 152. ^c n = 155. ^d n = 153. ^e n = 150.

Note. Numbers in this table reflect the percentage and amount of parents that discussed a given theme. Parents may have discussed multiple themes, and therefore this table details how common discussion of a theme was in the narrative responses.

^a Bolded value indicates a statistically significant association between violent death and sense-making theme at the p < .05 level.

^b Chi-square test.

^c Fisher's exact test (used instead of the chi-square test when the expected frequency in at least one cell was less than five).

Note. Numbers in this table reflect the percentage and amount of parents that discussed a given theme. Parents may have discussed multiple themes, and therefore this table details how common discussion of a theme was in the narrative responses.

^a Bolded value indicates a statistically significant association between violent death and benefit-finding theme at the p < .05 level.

^b Chi-square test.

^c Fisher's exact test (used instead of the chi-square test when the expected frequency in at least one cell was less than five).